Sammie Espada, a senior women’s and gender studies and political science major, is a student activist who ran for student body president, participated in the Women’s March and helped shut down Franklin Street in a protest against HB2. Staff writer Tallman Boyd asked Espada about her take on issues facing UNC students.
The Daily Tar Heel: What issues do you feel are important to students and faculty at UNC?
Sammie Espada: I think that we talk a lot about the need for equality on campus and the steps that we are making, but sometimes we’re not pushing them far enough. Whether that is women’s rights and access to additional resources on campus, sexual assault and policy reform on our campus, as well as racial equality especially in regard to black and Latino people on our campus. There have been students who aren’t protected at this time and it is really important to help them through their wishes and their wants and try to guide them.
DTH: Do you feel that there still needs to be more activism against what the legislature is doing to LGBTQ rights?
SE: Yes, definitely. I feel that there are a lot of common issues and things that happen between here and the rest of the country. I feel that among the campus that national issues (are important). We have something that is going on in North Carolina that is very specific to us and with especially very specific what affects our school. It is really important that we get our voices heard on these issues and that our legislature knows that we are fighting for the people and that we have certain demands that we want listened to and heard as well as people to be respected. We need to be protected on college campuses as well. It can’t just be in regard to the University, but the state as well. We are a state university so it is big deal that we feel like the legislature is doing what we need to be done and that there should be lots of events from repealing HB2 or looking at what is happening with the (Board of Governors) and taking away the Center for Civil Rights’ ability to litigate and other schools across the UNC school system.
DTH: With cuts to education that the legislature is proposing and with Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, do you feel more empowered to take on issues like student loans that could burden potential students?
SE: I think that education concerns are very important, but I think education in association with financial background and student loan interest is a taboo issue that we do not talk about enough. I don’t think that we talk about class at UNC enough at all. There is disparity there and we do not really talk about what it is like to have loans or what it is like for people who are in the lower or middle class and how they are affected with tuition prices.
DTH: With a lot of protests of that have gone on at (the University of California, Berkeley) and Middlebury College, do you feel like that some of protests that occurred against Milo Yiannopoulos or Ann Coulter give a wrong message of what protesting should be about? Do you feel that (these outbursts) are harming what you are doing?
SE: It’s a hard question because as a feminist and an activist, I completely understand how protests can get out of hand. There is so much emotion and it’s so hard for people to voice that emotion and to really speak, so I completely understand of how things can get out of hand with a large collection of people. However, you want your voice and you want to think positive. No one else is going to listen to us, so it is hard because you want people to organize in a non-violent matter, but it is not always a cut-and-dry issue. What’s important to know it is not the protesters who are organizing who make that happen or change the mode of the protesters. It is also some of the people involved get their emotions strung up. Almost all the time that I have seen on college campuses it is meant to be and productive.
